ROCKFORD — The area’s first zip-line course could propel riders down the rolling Alpine Hills slopes before year’s end.

Rockford Park District officials and zip-line operators say plans are on pace to open the aerial runway — which sends participants speeding between towers on a steel cable — by late summer or early fall. The district is in the final stages of negotiating a contract with Rockford native Steve Gustafson, owner of EBL Canopy Tours, to build and operate the adventurous activity on park district property.

Gustafson plans to host tours where participants can zip along six cables and trek across a suspension bridge.

“I’m going to make it as big and bold as I can,” Gustafson said. “We want to try to add something every other year, if not every year, to try to keep the energy and the draw there.”

The Park District expects to have the contract settled in May, Executive Director Tim Dimke said. Gustafson’s company also operates zip-line tours in the northern Illinois town of Marseilles and in Florida, North Carolina, California and Idaho.

“We have a pretty good sense of what the public wants and demands from our six other operations in the United States, and we’re going to bring that same kind of quality to the Rockford market,” Gustafson.

Meanwhile, the district has been making strides toward turning the former 52-acre Alpine Hills Golf Course into a year-round adventure park by 2015.

Gateway Parks is in the final negotiations with the district to design, construct and operate a snow park and toboggan run. But first, the district has to build some key infrastructure that will support the operation.

The Rockford Park District Foundation’s goal is to raise $1.2 million in donations to fund construction of lights, a water system for snow-making machines and other infrastructure that will support the mix of snowboarding, snow tubing and tobogganing that would anchor the park in winter.

The property itself was donated to the foundation in 2011 by the Hansberger family. The former nine-hole course closed in 2010 after 10 seasons because of damage from erosion.

The project has been well-received by lead donors, said Jim Keeling, a member of the foundation’s board of directors.

The foundation wasn’t ready to identify major donors this week, but Keeling said a formal announcement about a significant piece of the fundraising puzzle will come this summer. Keeling said that successful fundraising will put the district on track to open the winter portion of the adventure park in 2015.

Page 2 of 2 - “We’ve made breakthroughs in the fundraising the last couple weeks. We’re getting a lot closer to, hopefully, this summer being able to wrap up that fundraising,” Dimke said.

On Tuesday, the district’s commissioners approved a $98,300 contract with Contemporary Hammer Works Inc. to reconstruct and build a ticket office and restroom building at Alpine Hills.

Grass seeds were planted for a future five-hole beginner’s golf course that will operate on a separate area of the hill. That course is expected to open in the fall. It’s operated by The First Tee of Greater Rockford, a nonprofit organization which focuses on teaching golf and other life skills to young people.

Dimke said contracts are being negotiated so the price of zip lining and winter activities will be below the market rate, making it affordable for local residents and an attractive destination to visitors.

The two companies that will run summer and winter activities will pay to lease the land from the district, but the district’s price is meant to allow it to recoup costs of maintenance and allow for a low fee for users, Dimke said.

“We have to keep moving our community forward and make it one of the most exciting places to live in this country,” Dimke said. “Other (developments) will happen if we can create a community with this kind of excitement.”